Shepherdstown offers up exclusive back-to-back weekends of culture, entertainment, and commerce in the first half of November.

First up, the wildly popular annual Over the Mountain Studio Touroffers a glimpse at the personal work spaces of the area’s most notable creatives.

The local community, and beyond, will get the chance to pull back the productive curtain and witness where the artists and makers of the OTMST toil and create on the weekend of November 11 and 12 (10am-5pm) throughout Jefferson County. In all, 24 artists will be available at 10 studio spaces—to sell their work and share the way they create their pieces.

Many of the OTMST artists’ work can be seen in exhibitions and retail spaces throughout the country. This event, the oldest studio tour in West Virginia (in its 28th year), is a unique chance to see the origins of those pieces. These creative spaces house various utensils—from the traditional paints, pencils, and clay to the unexpected heavy equipment—including chainsaws, fiery forge tools, and building-sized kilns.

Additionally, artists will be offering demonstrations throughout the weekend. Attendees should make a point to arrange their visit to allow for viewing some hands-on examples of artists at work.

The tour travels through Harpers Ferry, Charles Town, and Shepherdstown. Artists offer works for sale in various mediums, including ceramics, glass, wood, jewelry, drawings, prints, paintings, and more. Guest can plan their visit by following the brochure map available at tour stops and local businesses, or downloading the online map here.

For more information, email artrulesme@aol.com or call 703-727-2532.

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Just one week later, on Saturday, November 18, the Friends of Music will present a Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra concert in Shepherdstown at Trinity Episcopal Church (corner of German and Church Streets) at 7:30pm. Tickets are on sale now.

Entitled “Joyful Noise,” the concert will feature three works: “Träumerei,” by Robert Schumann; Prokofiev’s 2nd Violin Concerto; and Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. The featured soloist will be violinist Ruotao Mao.

Admission to the concert will be free for Friends of Music members. The ticket price for others will be $25 per person ($22.50 before November 5). Tickets can be purchased here—or by mail (FOM, P.O. Box 220, Shepherdstown, WV 25443). Or, if space is available, at the church the evening of the performance. Visa and Master Card will be accepted.

Two Rivers Chamber Orchestra Music Director Jed Gaylin will conduct. Gaylin says the evening’s program “will demonstrate that classical music can, quite simply, be a lot of fun, and this is fun on overdrive!”

Ruotao Mao

The concert will open with Schumann’s “Träumerei,” a short, beautiful work that the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz frequently played as an encore. “It may look simple on the page,” Horowitz said, “but it is a masterpiece.”

Next, Prokofiev’s 2nd Violin Concerto is one of the finest examples of the composer’s effort to establish a “new simplicity” in music, centered on graceful melodies. Additionally, Beethoven’s 7th Symphony is full of relentless energy—generally regarded as one of the most innovative, compelling, and ecstatic symphonies ever written.

Mr. Mao, the violin soloist, is a native of Beijing, China—who graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a “distinction in performance” award. He currently teaches violin and chamber music at The College of New Jersey and is the concertmaster of the Delaware Valley Philharmonic Orchestra, the Riverside Symphonia, the Bay Atlantic Symphony, and most recently, the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra. The Classical Network of New Jersey has described his playing as a “virtuoso display of world-class magnitude.”

This concert is dedicated to the memory of the late Sherman Ross of Shepherdstown—a longtime Friends of Music patron—by his wife Elinor.